Search this site
-
Recent posts
About
I'm a councillor in the London Borough of Wandsworth; this blog mainly covers that, sometimes general politics and policy and occasionally anything else that takes my fancy.
Category Archives: Politics
Could you create the council Hansard?
I love MySociety’s latest idea to create a ‘local government Hansard’. Hansard, of course, is the record of parliamentary debate, but as MySociety’s post explains it: has no actual legal power [but] still has a huge impact on successful functioning of Parliament. MPs share their own quotes, they quote things back to one-another, journalists cite
read more…
Reforming social care
This post was published on the Local Government Association blog as a very quick response to the government social care white paper; it is not particularly profound or in depth. As noted at the post’s original home the views do not necessarily represent anyone or anything else, so all lack of insight is my own.
read more…
What does a councillor do?
I’ve thought rather a lot about this leaflet from Swansea council since I saw it on the Localopolis blog in the middle of last month. Part of that is because, despite its simplicity, it’s a good assessment of what a councillor actually is (or could be). But moving past the desire to self-evaluate I was
read more…
Tagged councillor, expectations, roles, Swansea
Leave a comment
Getting a change from Number 10
In what will be remembered as the biggest success my political ‘career’ will ever see I managed to get a change on the Number 10 website. For months I’d been railing about the typo at the bottom of their page, see here in a screen grab I made about a week ago. Neighbourood? Really? I’m
read more…
No mayors, but missed opportunities
A week after the elections one set of results particularly disappoints me. Not the Conservative and Lib Dem losses – while I’m sure we lost many fine councillors this election was a typical mid-term where the government is traditionally punished. Coming from a high point four years ago the losses were not at all surprising. What
read more…
Tagged Birmingham, councils, directly elected, Mayor, mayors, Twitter
1 Comment
Back Boris
Until motivated by my letter from Brett Harrison yesterday, I don’t think I’d posted anything about the Mayoral and GLA elections this time around, so this is my last chance. I’ve tweeted a little about it, but not that much. What I have found myself doing (perhaps a little too often) is the campaigning. I
read more…
Tagged Boris, election, GLA, Ken, Wandsworth
Leave a comment
My friend, Brett Harrison
A fantastic bit of campaigning from the Labour Party.* This sort of thing that the Liberal Democrats pioneered. A ‘hand-written’ letter to try and persuade you of the merits of their candidate. It’s meant to be more personal than a traditional leaflet and, therefore, have more impact. I got this delivered by Royal Mail this
read more…
Tagged Boris, elections, Ken, London
3 Comments
What is the point of a council?
This post first appeared on the Local Government Association blog. What do you say to someone who wants to be a councillor? After agreeing to meet someone through the LGA’s ‘Be a councillor’ campaign, I needed an answer. There are, of course, the platitudes: you can make a difference, improve your area, maybe get that
read more…
Tagged Council, councils, innovation, social change
Leave a comment
Dear Government, to save you spying…
Yesterday I used the Internet as follows: Sent and received 81 emails, of which 58 related to council and ward work, 10 related to my non-council work and 13 were to friends and family Visited pages at BBC News, Department of Communities and Local Government, London School of Economics, Local Government Information Unit, Angry People
read more…
Tagged civil liberties, fear, FUD, web monitoring
Leave a comment
Cllr Kim Caddy and the Southfields by-election
I don’t really do politics. Not on here, and not that much anywhere else. I’ve commented enough on my political evolution to delve into it once more. However, this has been a remarkable week in politics and I’ve been unable to reflect on it. The major political event locally has been the victory of Kim
read more…
